


Tides of Change

by The Blue Escapist (TheBlueEscapist)



Category: Greenhollow Duology - Emily Tesh
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:16:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28140753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBlueEscapist/pseuds/The%20Blue%20Escapist
Summary: An unexpected event drags Henry and Tobias back into a situation they thought was past them. Set after "Drowned Country".
Relationships: Tobias Finch (Greenhollow Duology)/Henry Silver (Greenhollow Duology)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Tides of Change

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Panny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Panny/gifts).



Silver was going to die a gruesome and cursed death, and it would drive Tobias to madness.

The wendigo bared his teeth very slowly at Silver in a mockery of a smile. It had Silver cornered, it could afford to take its time and enjoy its kill. If only Silver could keep it entertained for a couple of minutes longer… He had certainly made enough of a ruckus fleeing that at least Maud, who was closest, must have heard him. 

But Silver was the Green Man no longer: if he threw himself from the cliff behind him, no seedling would immediately sprout tenfold just to stop his demise. 

_The rowan will help._

The thought startled Silver badly enough that his eyes slid up to where there was indeed a rowan tree towering above his monstrous assailant. 

Said assailant did not like losing its prey’s attention, and snarled at Silver, swiping at him. Silver hastily took a single step back, but even as he felt the ground crumble a little under his foot, he concentrated his mind on the rowan’s healthy, heavy branch that was closest to them.

The branch cracked and landed on the wendigo’s head with a loud thud.

The wendigo howled in pain, and fell to his knees even as it flailed its arms up to dislodge the sudden weight. It charged at Silver with a roar, and fell down once more, silver bullet after silver bullet snuffing its life out as Maud fired at it again and again.

“I didn’t think I would make it in time, I thought you were done for,” Maud panted, then shot the wendigo’s corpse a couple more times with gusto.

“I’m perfectly fine,” Silver said, and in that moment Tobias burst into the opening, and heard the quiver in Silver’s voice.

* * *

“It was _just a coincidence_ ,” Silver said, a little loudly, but he couldn’t keep the annoyance out of his voice any longer.

Tobias glared at him, then glanced back at where Mrs Silver and Maud were trailing them. Silver couldn’t help but notice that his mother’s mouth was pinched, and that Maud was too focused on the gravel to actually be uninterested in their conversation.

Tobias grabbed him by the elbow, and sped up their pace. 

“Try again,” Tobias murmured. “I checked that tree three times, and it was a healthy tree with no signs of weather damage. That branch shouldn’t have snapped like that.”

“Maybe you’re just not an expert on everything green anymore,” Silver said, and he had just almost died, he could be excused if he sounded snide to his own ears.

“Or maybe,” Tobias said, in the flat tone that still haunted Silver’s nightmares, “you’re lying to me again.”

Silver closed his eyes, and took one breath, then another. When he could meet Tobias’s gaze again, he said: “I’m not going to apologize for not being slaughtered. Believe what you will, it’s your choice. But this conversation is over.”

Silver wrenched himself from Tobias’s grasp and forged ahead. Tobias never joined him.

* * *

Dinner was an uncomfortable affair. 

Mrs Silver was eating her soup with all the primness of a schoolmistress subjected to her charges’s silliness one time too many. Maud, who Silver had expected to pepper him with questions, was hunched over her plate. She kept shifting her gaze from Tobias to Silver, opening her mouth, then shutting it again.

For his part, Silver’s voice hadn’t yet broken when he’d last been subjected to the chilly stares between his parents during a silent argument, but he could still remember how hard he had practiced at maintaining a pleasant facade no matter the circumstances, and it was all too easy to slip that mask back on.

But Tobias, who hated being helpless, was a simmering pot of tension. He tore into his meal with a ferocity Silver had never seen him display so openly. Silver decided that the most prudent course of action was to engage in a strategic retreat while Tobias was otherwise occupied.

“As charming as this conversation has been,” Silver said, earning himself one of his mother’s patented looks, “I feel this day has been eventful enough to put me off my food. I think I’ll take a calming stroll in the garden before retiring early.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” Tobias said, and damn him, must the man be so attractive even when he was being relentess? There was no future in being a doormat, though, so Silver projected all the affront he ought to be feeling, and exclaimed:

“Excuse me, _Mr Finch_ , but I think I have the right to—“

“Madam, if I may? I would request tomorrow’s morning off to regroup.” 

“Whatever you think is best, Mr Finch”, Mrs Silver said, with such an approving tone that Silver’s outrage turned real.

“Well,” Silver said, “since my opinion doesn’t seem to matter in any way, I’ll just remove myself from—Mr Finch! Unhand me at once!” 

But Tobias’s grip on his forearm remained unyielding, and Silver was all but dragged out of the dining room, in a cloud of protests.

* * *

As soon as they reached their bedroom, Tobias threw Silver on the bed.

By now Silver was such a bundle of exposed nerves, primed for a fight, that in his disjointed efforts to get up it was easy for Tobias to undo Silver’s belt and use it to tie Silver’s wrists to the bedpost.

“You aren’t going anywhere,” Tobias said, towering over Silver, and now that Silver was paying attention, he saw the look in Tobias’s eyes, and finally saw his own fright and hopelessness mirrored in them.

A sob broke past Silver’s lips, but he swore: “Neither are you!”

“No,” Tobias agreed, and he closed his mouth over Silver’s.

And so Silver let Tobias’s hands ground him, Tobias’s tongue inflame him, Tobias’s croons soothe his dread-stricken heart, till he was nothing but a blooming flower basking in the warmth of Tobias's sun, and there was no Hallow Wood in the world, only them, only them.

* * *

It was still dark when Silver woke up, and he was quiet as he groped around for his clothes and stepped into them, grateful that Tobias slept so soundly these days.

He allowed himself one last good look at Tobias, knowing he wouldn’t be forgiven for what he was about to do. The steadiness in Tobias’s rising chest, the smoothness of his brow, filled Silver with tenderness, and steeled his resolve. 

He slipped out of the room, and as he closed the door behind himself he felt clear-headed, his purpose driving him in the muted shadows as he turned corridor after corridor to reach the hallway.

Mrs Silver was standing before the front door.

Silver couldn’t make out her features clearly in the predawn dimness, so he advanced slowly and said: “Madam,” and he hadn’t meant to sound threatening, but Mrs Silver drew herself up even more.

“You are supposed to be smart, Henry” Mrs Silver said, and she snapped her cane against the marbled floor. “And yet here you are, throwing away the best thing that’s ever happened to you, for the second time.” 

“It needs to be done,” Silver said. “Something is wrong, if the Wood called out to me again. And I know you don’t think much of me, Madam, but I won’t let Tobias sacrifice himself in my place just because I cannot take a little loneliness.”

“You are _my son_ ,” Mrs Silver said, and her voice was harsh, and thick. “I was indeed of the opinion that you weren’t handling your new condition as well as you could have, but I believed you were just throwing one of your tantrums. If I’d had any inkling that you were that unhappy, I’d have intervened at once.”

“Mother,” Silver said, his ears burning.

“So if you think I’m going to let you go and offer yourself up to the Wood, you can think again.”

“There is _no other choice_ ,” Silver said, not managing to hide his anguish. “The magic needs to be managed, and if the fairy can’t do it…Tobias has already more than paid his dues, mother, it was me who got off lightly.”

“There is always another choice, don’t be so dramatic,” Mrs Silver said, and there was so much conviction in her tone that Silver desperately wanted to believe her. “We need to find out more information first, and then—”

Tobias burst into the hallway, panting and bare-footed, and halted abruptly when he noticed both Silver and Mrs Silver. 

“Whatever is the matter, Mr Finch?” Mrs Silver asked.

“Maud has fled,” Tobias said.

* * *

It was at times like these, Silver mused as the coach hit another bump, that he most missed the power of just appearing into the Wood at will. 

“It must be because of the fairy,” Silver repeated.

“And I already told you, Maud has better sense than that,” Mrs Silver said, crumpling and then smoothing out Maud’s note.

Silver felt a prickle of jealousy that she judged Maud more highly than she did her own son. Then again, from the way Tobias kept staring stonily at the sun rising in the distance, his hands curled into fists, she might be right about that.

* * *

It was surprisingly easy to find Maud once they got off the coach and entered the Hallow Wood, because Bramble descended on them at once with Maud wrapped up in a nice vine cocoon. 

Maud was red with anger, and as soon as Bramble removed the vine around her mouth, she asked Mrs Silver: “Were you in on it, too?!”

Mrs Silver seemed at a loss, and said, wringing her hands: “What are you talking about, dearest?”

“I knew Henry was going to blow a gasket and do something stupid, so I came here to find out what the matter was, and how he managed to snap that branch _with his mind_ when he shouldn’t have been able to anymore, and what do I find once I’m here? My fairy! You hid my fairy from me!”

Silver groaned. “Maud, for God’s sake! We didn’t tell you because we knew you’d react like this!”

“ _Mr Finch_ deemed it best,” Mrs Silver said, and Silver snorted. “He said that since you’re fairy-mad—“

“I’m not!” Maud cried. “I’m the one who was possessed by that horrible Queen, you think anyone could have any doubts about the nature of Fairyland after that? And if I want to see him again even after all of that, I think I deserve it!”

Silver was at a loss, and looked back at Tobias, who seemed as uncomfortable as Silver himself for once. 

“I apologise,” Mrs Silver said, stiffly. “I should have realised you might need some closure. Miss Bramble, may I ask you to let the fairy know Maud wishes to meet?”

“They bumped into each other already and it fled,” Bramble said, and Silver noted with pleasure she was using the same tone she used to reserve for him. It was good to know it was only Tobias who was exempt from her judgement.

“Very well,” Mrs Silver said, and she was now using her business voice. “Mr Finch, Henry. Help Maud track down the fairy so they may speak. Miss Bramble, I’d like to have a word with you.”

“Mother,” Silver said, alarmed, but Mrs Silver glared at him and he closed his mouth with a snap.

* * *

Being a chaperone, Silver realised, was an excruciatingly embarassing thing, especially when your de facto sister was a bold creature who had no qualms about slapping and then kissing a creature several thousands of years older.

Perhaps he should learn from Maud’s straightforwardness, Silver pondered, as he stood with Tobias at a respectable distance.

“She shouldn’t be taking these liberties,” Tobias said, and Silver was so delighted to spot a blush on his face that he replied without much thought: “I don’t know, it seems to be working quite well for her.”

Tobias shot him a look of outrage, then immediately turned his head away.

“It was wrong of me to try and leave,” Silver said then, and knew he’d been right to speak when Tobias exhaled slowly. “I have no desire to be bound to the Wood again, but better me than you.”

Tobias twisted around and grabbed his forearm. “Henry,” Tobias said.

Mrs Silver chose that moment to arrive, carried by Bramble on what appeared to be a vine seat.

She glanced at Maud and her fairy, then pursed her lips in disapproval at Silver, who shrugged back at her.

“Maud, you’d better be prepared to marry that fairy if you keep that up,” Mrs Silver said, and it startled Maud enough that she jumped up and away.

“Mrs Silver, I…”

“We can continue this conversation later,” Mrs Silver told her, raising her hand. “I believe you’re the current Wild Man of Greenhollow?” she continued, addressing the fairy at Maud’s side.

“ _I’m unworthy,_ ” the fairy said, bowing his head in Silver’s direction, and it looked really miserable, shimmering in and out of existence.

“It’s not his fault,” Maud said at once. “He doesn’t seem to be bound properly to the Wood. Perhaps if we tried with pomegranates instead of crab apples—”

“It is not a creature of this world,” Bramble said, shaking her head. “It cannot stay the entire year.”

“Which is a good thing,” Mrs Silver said, and everyone except Bramble turned to stare at her.

“We do not want another Lord of Summer, and I do not want another repeat of Henry’s miserable years. Bramble and I have discussed the matter, and we have come upon a solution.”

* * *

“It’s just weird,” Silver said, as Tobias licked his way down from his neck to the hollow of his back. Silver was tied up again, this time with ipomoeas that caressed his body at Tobias’s bidding. That they’d both discovered something they liked in that night of angry and frantic lovemaking was something else that was weird for Silver.

“Great power, great responsability,” Tobias said, as he slipped his hand between Silver’s torso and the sheets to twist Silver’s right nipple. Silver gasped appreciatively. “Much better to split it like this, so clever of Mrs Silver to think of it,” Tobias said.

“Could you please not talk of my mother right now?” Silver whined.

“You’re just peevish because it didn’t occur to you first,” Tobias laughed, and Silver was sure he would never tire of the sound, even if centuries did indeed come and go for them.

“We just don’t know what it’s going to do to our bodies,” Silver said, offended because Tobias was indeed correct.

“Any time together we gain is a gift,” Tobias said with a kiss to Silver’s temple, and Silver felt his heart clench with the weight of his feelings for Tobias. “Also, I’m glad Maud will reign over summer,” Tobias added. “After Fabian it’s just better that it’s a woman.”

Silver harrumphed, and said: “I’m just relieved I’ll now be able to call on the Wood anytime a monster attacks me. Also, I think I’m going to be a fantastic spring prince,” he said, exaggerating a pout.

Tobias laughed again, and proceeded to kiss the words out of Silver.


End file.
